Part 9 (1/2)
”Probably a woman in it.”
”Not unlikely. Good-bye.”
As Kelson turned from the door, Morriston and another man appeared at the farther end of the hall and called to him.
”You know Dr. Page,” he said as Kelson joined them.
”A terrible business this, doctor,” Kelson observed as they shook hands.
The medico drew in a breath. ”And at first sight in the highest degree mysterious,” he said gravely.
”Dr. Page,” said Morriston, ”has made a cursory examination of the body. The autopsy will take place elsewhere. The police are making notes of everything important, and after dark will remove the body quietly by the tower door. So I hope the ladies will know nothing of the tragedy just yet.”
As they were speaking a footman had opened the hall-door and now approached with a card on a salver. ”Can you see this gentleman, sir?” he said.
Morriston took the card, and as he glanced at it an expression of pain crossed his face. He handed it silently to Kelson, who gave it back with a grave nod. It was the card of ”Mr. Gervase Henshaw, II Stone Court, Temple, E.G.”
CHAPTER VII
THE INCREDULITY OF GERVASE HENSHAW
”Show Mr. Henshaw into the library,” Morriston said to the footman. ”This is horribly tragic,” he added in a low tone to Kelson, ”but it has to be gone through, and perhaps the sooner the better. His brother?”
”Yes; he mentioned him on our way from the station the other evening. At any rate he will be able to see the situation for himself.”
”You will come with me?” Morriston suggested. ”You might fetch your friend, Gifford.”
Kelson nodded, opened the drawing-room door and called Gifford out, while Morriston waited in the hall.
”The brother has turned up,” he said as the two men joined him. ”No doubt to make inquiries. What are we to say to him?”
”There is nothing to be said but the bare, inevitable truth,” Gifford answered. ”You can't now break it to him by degrees.”
Morriston led the way to the library. By the fire stood a keen-featured, sharp-eyed man of middle height and lithe figure, whose manner and first movements as the door opened showed alertness and energy of character.
There was a certain likeness to his brother in the features and dark complexion as well as in a suggestion of unpleasant aggressiveness in the expression of his face, but where the dead man's personality had suggested determination overlaid with an easy-going, indulgent spirit of hedonism this man seemed to bristle with a restless mental activity, to be all brain; one whose pleasures lay manifestly on the intellectual side. One thing Gifford quickly noted, as he looked at the man with a painful curiosity, was that the face before him lacked much of the suggestion of evil which in the brother he had found so repellent. This man could surely be hard enough on occasion, the strong jaw and a certain hardness in the eyes told that, but except perhaps for an uncomfortable excess of sharpness, there was none of his brother's rather brutally scoffing cast of expression.
Henshaw seemed to regard the two men following Morriston into the room with a certain apprehensive surprise.
”I hope you will pardon my troubling you like this,” he said to Morriston, speaking in a quick, decided tone, ”but I have been rather anxious as to what has become of my brother, of whom I can get no news.
He came down to the c.u.mberbatch Hunt Ball, which I understand was held in this house, and from that evening seems to have mysteriously disappeared.
He had an important business engagement for the next day, Wednesday, which he failed to keep, and this may mean a considerable loss to him.
Can you throw any light on his movements down here?”
Morriston, dreading to break the news abruptly, had not interrupted his questions.
”I am sorry to say I can,” he now answered in a subdued tone.